Buick Sets New All-Time High Global Sales Record

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Buick just witnessed a historical moment. This is because the brand delivered 1,032,056 vehicles in China, the United States, Canada and Mexico in 2013 — a new record, spanning Buick’s 110-year history. Previously, the record was 1,003,345 in 1984.

The rise in sales can be attributed to both strong economic growth in both China and North America with global sales up 15.4 percent over 2012. Specifically, China saw a 15.7 percent sales gain domestically with 809,918 total sales, while the U.S. followed behind with a 13.9 percent sales increase at 205,509. Also in America, 42 percent of Buick buyers were new to the brand and to General Motors. Meanwhile, Canada followed suit with a 9.5 increase in 2012.

Buick attributes this growth also to their global growth in both crossovers and sedans from their lineup, calling it “among the freshest in the industry and the strongest the brand has ever featured.”

Specifically, the new Encore crossover ended 2013 with 97,311 sales globally, and the three-row Enclave ended its best year of U.S. sales in 2013, growing 6.5 percent in North America. Segregated to China, the GL8 posted an annual sales gain of 9.7 percent.

Also in China, the Excelle compact sedan commanded a nice lead in its segment, delivering 6.9 percent sales growth. Combined, the Excelle, Excelle GT and Verano compact sedans combined globally to deliver a 16.3 percent gain, while sales of the Excelle XT hatchback, sold only in China, were up 17.5 percent.

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Tommy Zimmer is an up and coming freelance writer and journalist from Detroit, MI. He has freelanced for various websites like BleedingCool.com and local newspapers like the Detroit Free Press and Detroit Metro Times. You can check out all of his ongoings at zimmert101.wordpress.com or at twitter.com/ZimmerTR101

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6 Comments

Note to all who wonder why Buick was saved and not Pontiac here is why.

It has been years since Pontiac sold even close to this number and they only did it a few years in the 900K to 800K and that was back in the 80’s since then it had declined.

The sales numbers are not high in the states but they do not have to be with China. Also we have yet to see the new Buick launched yet. So you can expect these numbers to only increase in China and Here.

But, Pontiac never went global. It isn’t a fair comparison! When I read this story, this is exactly what ran through my mind: “If Buick was only in North America, they’d be dead in a New York Minute!” GM “tried” to make Pontiac better and more performance-oriented, but they added the G3/G5/Vibe/GA/Aztek/Montana instead of trying to fix their current models for the better (GP/Firebird/Bonneville/GA/GTO/G6/G8/Torrent). GM didn’t try at all, it was almost as if they wanted Pontiac dead.

I think GM brass did want Pontiac dead. Running product lines is hard work, capital intensive. Also Chevy, Pontiac and Saturn slammed into each other on price point after incentives.
I remember talk of killing off Pontiac by the mid 1990s. By then it was already a damaged brand with declining fortunes. In addition, GM no longer held enough market share for what amounted to three value oriented marques.

My hope is that GM will take a page from VW, and give us three unique (eventually semi global) brands.

Buick is doing great and must make a lot of money sharing cost with Opel.

I think overall that 2013 was weak for Chevy though with not nearly enough domestic growth.

It seems like Opel and Buick do a lot of mainstream work fighting Ford in Europe & China. What doors this say about Chevy? Will it eventually fight brands like Dacia, Datson and Chery globally? If so, will that push Buick into the “mainstream” segment domestically?

I’m excited about Buick, Opel/Vauxhall but the slow growth of Chevy and the high development cost + low volume for Caddy make me nervious for GM in the long term.